Main Menu

Soviet two-seat fighter aircraft. The DI-6, in which V P Yatsenko played a managerial role, was intended as a versatile fighter biplane able to engage both biplanes and monoplanes with equal facility. Powered by a 710-hp Cyclone, the prototype TsKB-11 flew in late 1934. The production DI-6 had a 775-hp M-25 and carried a heavier load slightly faster.

Of mixed construction, with I-type inter-plane struts, mainly fabric covering and inward-retracting main gears, the DI-6 had four 7.62-mm (0.30-in) ShKAS forward -firing guns, and a fifth aimed over a wide arc from the semi-enclosed rear cockpit. Underwing racks carried four 12-kg (26-lb) bombs.

Considerable numbers were built by 1937, and the DI-6 was a major Soviet type in the border wars with Japan in 1938-39. A few were in action against the Luftwaffe in 1941. A development, the DI-7 with 1000-hp M-62, did not enter production.